Category: Sports News

Mike Brown won 53 games in his first year as Knicks coach. His Knicks finished No. 4 on offense, No. 7 on defense and No. 5 in net rating. Strong numbers, solid results.

But Brown knows his regular season accomplishments don’t mean much.

We all know that these Knicks – and their head coach – will be judged on what happens over the next few weeks.

So far, so good.

Brown and his staff made some decisions that were crucial to New York’s Game 1 win on Saturday.

Under Brown and associate head coach Chris Jent, the Knick offense looked strong early on. Yes, part of it was Jalen Brunson’s brilliance (19 first-quarter points, 8-for-11 shooting). But the Karl-Anthony Towns-Brunson actions also resulted in some great looks. The Knicks shot 60 percent in the first quarter and 49 percent in the half.

But they were having issues on the other end of the floor. Atlanta’s guard-guard screens produced some open threes (Hawks were 5-for-8 on threes in the second quarter). They allowed Atlanta to get out in transition.

The Knicks dominated stretches of the first half but went to the locker room with just a two-point lead.

Brown and his staff seemed to push nearly all the right buttons coming out of halftime.

The Knicks outscored Atlanta in transition, 11-0, in the third quarter.

After facilitating in the first half, Towns started to put the ball in the basket after halftime. He had 14 points in the first 18 minutes of the half, helping the Knicks push their lead to 16 with six minutes to go.

The Knicks also cleaned up their defense on the Hawks perimeter screening. Atlanta missed seven of its nine three-point attempts in the decisive third quarter.

Another good call by Brown? His counterpart, Quin Snyder, started to intentionally foul Mitchell Robinson in the third quarter. They fouled Robinson four times in a 1:03 stretch of the third quarter. Robinson missed three of four free throws; New York’s lead was down to six with 4:51 left in the third.

Brown took Robinson out at that point. But he didn’t keep him on the bench. Brown had Robinson back on the floor to start the fourth quarter. Atlanta wasn’t going to intentionally foul Robinson early in the fourth and get the Knicks in the bonus. With Robinson on the floor, the Knicks extended their lead to 12 with 9:34 to play.

Brown also went to Jordan Clarkson to start the fourth. Clarkson delivered; his reverse layup with six minutes to play put the Knicks up 16.

Clarkson, you’ll remember, was out of the Knick rotation for several weeks in the middle of the season. Instead of burying him, Brown went back to Clarkson shortly after the All Star break. He gave the Knicks an immediate lift and has remained in Brown’s rotation ever since.

Brown is Clarkson’s sixth coach in 12 NBA seasons. So Clarkson knows good coaching when he sees it. He knows bad coaching when he sees it. What does he think of Brown?

“Intense, smart, challenges us as players. Makes some really good adjustments,” Clarkson said. “His communication throughout the year has been really good with us. From meetings, talking to us, finding out what we see, doing different things (based on player feedback). He’s done an amazing job.”

Brown passed his first Knick playoff test on Saturday. His next exam is Monday night at 8 pm.   

TOWNS/BRUNSON PAIRING

The Brunson/Towns actions on offense continue to produce good results.

“The longer we’re obviously  on the court together, our chemistry is better. I think we’ve grown as teammates, we’ve grown as friends, and it’s contributing to the way we’re playing,” Brunson said.

SECOND HALF PHYSICALITY

Both Josh Hart and Miles McBride said the Knicks played with a high level of physicality throughout the game. That picked up in the second half; Atlanta missed 15 of its first 23 shots to open the third quarter.

"I feel like they were getting out and they were winning a space battle (in the first half), getting open, getting to their spots and I feel like in the second half, we really cut that off,” McBride said. “We made catches difficult, and we got to loose balls.”

ANUNOBY'S IMPORTANCE

OG Anunoby left the game briefly in the second half due to an ankle injury. With Anunoby on the bench, Clarkson went to work. Just as he did late in the regular season, Clarkson performed some spiritual healing on Anunoby. Robinson and Jose Alvaradojoined as well.

“We need OG out here, so we’re gonna make it happen,” Clarkson joked after the game. “He came over to the bench and asked me if I could do (the spiritual healing) for his ankle; then he sat over there for a second, came back in the game and finished the game.

“Like I said, we need him on the floor so whatever I gotta do to keep it going… sprinkle a little magic on him.”

The score of this one might suggest that the Rockets weren’t in fact spanked, by the Lakers. They were. This was a wire to wire win for LA, and at no point did it seem like the Rockets were going to push past LA, take a lead, and keep it. The Lakers held the Rockets to 16pts below their season average for points allowed for this 9 point win. It could have been more. The final four minutes saw something of a Rockets garbage time scoring flurry, and they narrowed the Laker lead, slightly. The Lakers for their part seemed mostly interested in turning the scoreboard over enough that the Rockets never got close enough for discomfort.

The Rockets were, of course, missing Kevin Durant, the expensive painting that mostly covers the hole that is the Rockets offense. The Lakers, of course, were missing Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, and had a 41 year old LeBron James leading the charge of… Luke Kennard, Marcus Smart and Deandre Ayton. That turned out to be plenty for Los Angeles.

There are two ways of looking at this. One is, the Rockets probably won’t shoot this badly, again. LeBron won’t be playing with a week off, again. Kevin Durant is far more likely to play again soon than Doncic or Reaves. So, it’ll be fine. After all, the Rockets shot 93 times to the Lakers 66 and lost by 9. That really shouldn’t happen. A team has to miss a lot of shots for it to happen, and the Rockets certainly did. There’s really not a good offensive line anywhere, except for Tari Eason. Tari didn’t miss at all, and the rest of the team missed a ton. Unfortunately Tari only took 7 shots.

So one view is that the Rockets probably won’t shoot that badly again, and that Kevin Durant might well be back for the next game, and that will help, too.

If that’s where you come down on things, it’s fairly safe to stop reading now.

This is another view. The Rockets had a week to prepare to play a Lakers team without their two best players. The Lakers had the same. One team came out with a fairly clear plan to win this game, despite injury woes. The other came out looking almost exactly the same as the rest of the season.

The Lakers, evidently, made a plan to win this game despite obvious talent limitations. The Rockets seemed flummoxed by everything LA did, while LA seemed to know exactly what the Rockets would do, all the time.

Sometimes it is worthwhile to put yourself in the shoes of your opponent. To think about what you might do in their situation.

If your team is playing the Rockets, you know certain things about them on offense.

1. They do not run any sort of coherent offense, with plays and actions that reliably work for them, or even ones that don’t. There’s usually a dribble hand off, a perhaps a badly set pick, and then a player trying to find a shot. This sometimes leads to passes out to shooters, but more often leads to difficult, or at least congested, attempts fairly close to the basket. This was confirmed, once again, by outside observers. This time it was Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith saying the Rockets don’t run an offense, they just sort of attack one on one from the same spots. At this point, pretty much every national media former NBA player who has covered a Rockets game has said as much. It certainly matches what I’ve seen, and I think it’s true as well.
2. Three of the Rockets offensive mainstays require access to the paint to be most effective. These players are: KD, Sengun, Amen.
3. KD can shoot it from deep, well, but he mostly doesn’t in any volume. Sheppard is a threat from deep who must be covered, the rest of the Rockets can be guarded on 3pt shots largely by run outs on defense from the paint, or near it. Or by the two players who aren’t in the paint (see below) covering half the arc each. The Rockets rarely move, or overload, a side, so that’s straightforward.

So knowing that, what would you do? Pretty much what every intelligent, non tanking, opponent has done, right?

Try to gum up the initial dribble handoff and desultory pick attempt, and have the two defenders up at that action point try to soft trap the ballhandler to prevent a pass out. Such a pass is easy to defend, as the Rockets are largely stationary off ball. After that, play way back on the dribbler/initiator, if it’s anyone but Sheppard, or Durant. We won’t address defending Durant, as he didn’t play.

Will the Rockets patiently work pick and rolls to call up a weak defender, or matchup they want on offense? They will not. Or almost never do. They will attack whomever is guarding them. Would they, say, try to get Luke Kennard, not the swiftest of foot, on Amen Thompson? Nope. They wouldn’t.

So not having a weak defender called up on the pick, which is rarely good enough to peel a defender off the ball handler, or even allowing a switch to a stronger defender, say swapping Kennard for Smart or James, the Rocket will then try to attack the rim, or at least get closer to it.

Two more defenders, ostensibly guarding the corners or wings, collapse into the paint as Sengun, Thompson, or really any other Rocket, gets closer to the basket. These defenders stand on either side of basket, which cuts off both Thompson getting to the rim, and denies Sengun his superior mobility close in, to get easy shots. There’s literally nowhere for either player to go, a defender is standing there. They are forced to take a shot over the center, or another big, or pass out. As this usually happens at the end of the shot clock, because it takes so long to move close to the basket, there’s only one run out on a shooter called for in most cases. There isn’t time for more passes around the perimeter most of the time, and there isn’t anyone cutting, or screening for a shooter anyway.

The Lakers simply did a variant of the standard defense on the Rockets. The Rockets response to this was: nothing.

So the Rockets offense was stymied, and while it dominated the offensive glass, those extra shots often seemed to be just as bad as the initial shot. That’s not everything, the Rockets also missed close in shots, put backs, you name it. They probably won’t miss as many of those. But this is the playoffs, so the defensive intensity isn’t going to slacken. The Rockets have shown little to no ability to adjust on offense. So it could be the bad shooting continues, as well. Still, plugging in Kevin Durant, and his career 29pt playoff scoring average, probably changes some results.

On defense, we saw the Lakers also use some fairly effective approaches. The first is to attack the rim, with almost whomever has the ball, very quickly, from a spread out offense. The Rockets, last season, would trap, send help, double, opponents very quickly, sometimes ahead of the actual play. Not all the time, but frequently enough to be very disruptive. They don’t do that as much this season. I think it’s due to not having Dillon Brooks and Fred VanVleet both calling defense, adjustments, and anticipating plays. Fred and Dillon were often available to help ahead of the play, or attack an offense, without much “reaction time” needed.

This season it appears the Rockets mostly send help later, after it’s clear that a defender has been beaten. It seems rare, for instance, that a help defender is already in place, ahead of a driver. That could be deliberate, as there’s risk involved there if the helper can’t recover to his man on a pass off. Or it could be the Rockets have no one with the experience to make that happen on defense. In general the Rockets play solid individual defense, but seem to be less aggressive, and less cohesive. Maybe they’re tried to reduce the risk profile from aggressive play, but there are downsides, mostly in losing transition offense, and far less frequent disruption of opponents. It now seems to be saved for desperation, as when the Rockets forced a number of turnovers late in the fourth.

Tonight the Lakers decided to feature a player who is an excellent shooter, in Luke Kennard, and of course, LeBron James. What I noticed was that the Lakers went to great lengths, of movement, passing or screening, to find Kennard space to shoot. Shoot he did, scoring 27 points on an astonishingly efficient 9-13, and 5-5 from three. The Lakers, as a team, shot 61%. That probably isn’t sustainable, but their shots were mostly easy, or open.

You might think the answer would be to double Kennard, but the problem was, James was usually nearby, and so the man doubling Kennard would have to come off James. Which, given his ability to pass, shoot, or drive, creates a problem. He’s not what he was, but he will find an open man. His 13 assists to 2 turnovers are evidence of this.

Overall, the Rockets were simply stymied on offense, and gave up too many easy looks on defense.

The best sign going forward is that a great shooting night still only produced 107 points for the Lakers. Kevin Durant should, individually, if healthy, paper over the inadequacies on offense, enough so that similar defense should produce wins.

The worst sign is that the Rockets had a week to prepare for a specific opponent, one missing by far its two best scorers, and there was no evidence they did so. A short handed Lakers team beat them handily instead.

I still think they’ll win the series, if Durant plays.

According to Fred Katz, the Cleveland Cavaliers will discuss moving Donovan Mitchell if they aren’t able to get an extension done this summer.

It’s now or never for this version of the Cavaliers.

Story: https://t.co/StSclOG58Qpic.twitter.com/dWjreEysu5

— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) April 17, 2026

From Katz:

However Cleveland fares over these next two months will mold its future. Harden has a $42 million player option for next season that he’s likely to decline, a league source said. But a longer-term deal at a lesser number still would not be cheap. With today’s rules, with the way high payrolls chip away at resources and wallets, teams can’t stay so expensive while continuing to lose in the second round. Meanwhile, Mitchell, who can hit free agency in 2027, becomes eligible for an extension this summer.

If he signs it, the Cavs can move forward with him at their core. If he doesn’t, the organization will discuss the possibility of moving him, league sources said.

Now, where have I heard this before? It appears that a lot is riding on these playoffs for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They have an upcoming extension eligibility with Donovan Mitchell, and we’ll see if that happens. The Cavaliers have one of the highest payrolls in the NBA and appear very similar to Utah when they had to make tough decisions with Mitchell in the past.

For the Utah Jazz, this is the beginning of something great. Utah owns a pick swap with the Cavaliers in 2028 and a fully unprotected pick in 2029. If Mitchell is traded this summer, it’s hard to see the Cavaliers being good immediately, especially if James Harden leaves as well. According to Katz, Harden is expected to decline his player option this summer, and we’ll see if the Cavs give him a contract or if he’s also potentially gone.

This is something to watch really closely, and I can’t lie, I am rooting hard for the Raptors this round and, if the Cavs advance, the Detroit Pistons after that. There’s a world where Utah could get really lucky with its picks in the years to come, thanks to Donovan Mitchell.

It was only a matter of time.

Hack-a-Mitch has become a playoff staple with Knicks opponents given Mitchell Robinson’s well-documented struggles at the free throw line. And it predictably emerged again in the Knicks’ 113-102 Game 1 win over the Hawks on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.

Robinson had been impactful on the glass and as a rim protector in the first half. Then, trailing by seven with 5:44 left in the third quarter, the Hawks began fouling Robinson intentionally.

He was 1-for-4 on free throws before the Knicks took Robinson out of the game.

“We’ll see how the game goes, and we’ll leave him in until we think we need to make a sub,” coach Mike Brown said. “And whenever we feel like we need to make a sub, we will. But we’re gonna give him a chance.”

Though it took Robinson out of the game, it also meant the Knicks got into the bonus with 3:19 left in the third quarter, giving them plenty of opportunity to get easy points at the line.

And then Brown countered by having Robinson start the fourth quarter, preventing the Hawks from fouling him unless they wanted to play the whole quarter with the Knicks in the bonus.

“If they wanna start fouling, then that would get us closer to the bonus,” Brown said. “So it’s a time for us to go back to him.”

---

Karl-Anthony Towns’ father, Karl Sr., was in attendance for the first time since undergoing a medical procedure late in March.

“To have someone who I would say is the most important person in my life, it’s really awesome to be able to have him back and Madison Square Garden supporting me,” Towns said. “Any son out there that plays basketball or plays any sport, to see your father there, at your competition, you always have a sense of pride.“You wanna make him proud. It’s awesome that I get to see him on the baseline and be able to have some special moments with him.”

“To have someone who I would say is the most important person in my life, it’s really awesome to be able to have him back and Madison Square Garden supporting me,” Towns said. “Any son out there that plays basketball or plays any sport, to see your father there, at your competition, you always have a sense of pride.

“You wanna make him proud. It’s awesome that I get to see him on the baseline and be able to have some special moments with him.”

The Lakers could actually win this thing. 

They went from being the quivering dogs in the corner to becoming wolves.

The transformation happened 1 ½ hours before tipoff when they found out that Kevin Durant was sidelined for Game 1 of their first-round playoff series against the Rockets because of a right knee injury. 

It meant a team without Luka Doncic (hamstring) and Austin Reaves (oblique) had a more even fight. It meant a team without its top two scorers had a chance. It meant a team that was dejected started believing in itself again. 

The Lakers went on to win, 107-98. 

The Rockets have no idea how to play without Durant. He played in 78 games this season. He missed only four contests. 

His strength has now become the Rockets’ weakness. 

Before tipoff, the Rockets’ locker room was silent. 

Guys were looking at their phones. Or the carpet. It felt as though they were steeling themselves for a wake instead of a playoff game. 

Durant suffered the injury at a team practice Wednesday after bumping knees with a teammate. He went through a pregame workout Saturday. The knee didn’t respond well. 

“Hopefully it’s a one-game thing,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said before the game.

Hopefully?

This changes everything. The Lakers could win this thing now. 

Funny enough, the only superstar on the court Saturday was the only guy in NBA history to reach Season 23.

LeBron James had 10 assists in the first half, tying his career high for assists in any half of a playoff game. He finished with 19 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds. 

Then there was Luke Kennard, who had a playoff career-high 27 points on 9-for-13 shooting, including going 5-for-5 from beyond the arc. 

But really, the win was by committee. Every Lakers starter scored in double figures. They outshot the Rockets 60.6% to 37.6% from the field and 52.6% to 33.3% from beyond the arc. 

“It has to be a collective group,” James said. “When you’re missing so much firepower, like we are right now with AR and Luka being out, we all have to pitch in. We all have to do our job. And even do a little bit more. Protect one another offensively and defensively and I think we did that tonight.”

The Lakers were really good. They played together. This might really be happening. 

If they can get past the Rockets, they have a good shot at getting Doncic and Reaves back. If that happens, anything could happen. Heck, they were considered championship contenders after going on a 16-2 run before losing their two best players in the same game with five regular-season contests left.

They were crushed. Dejected. Lost. 

Now, they’re believers again. But in the end, it all comes down to Durant’s knee. If he’s healthy, the scale will drastically tip again. 

Udoka said Durant got imaging on his knee, adding the injury was “nothing major.” 

“It’s very tender,” Udoka said. “Tough to bend in certain ways. Not a lot of swelling. But [someone] hit him in a very awkward spot, I guess. … Right above the knee, patellar tendon area, it’s just very tender. Like I said, pain tolerance is one thing. But actually limited movement is more of the cause.”

That doesn’t sound great.

Durant doesn’t miss games because he’s slightly banged up. He plays through bumps and bruises and discomfort. You don’t miss fewer than a handful of games in a season at age 37 otherwise.

If Durant doesn’t return soon, the Lakers could really pull this off.

It’s stunning. It’s shocking.

But for this team, those words have defined their season.

And this is just the latest curveball.

NEW YORK — Not only did Jalen Brunson take one below the belt, he also got criticized on top of it.

Atlanta Hawks guard CJ McCollum’s leg kicked out during a jumpshot Saturday, April 18, striking Brunson in the groin, which eventually resulted in a technical foul, upon review. McCollum believes the review happened because Brunson embellished it after the fact.

“I shot a jumper and Jalen thought we were at a Broadway show,” McCollum told reporters after the Knicks’ 113-102 victory Saturday in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series. “He acted it out until they reviewed it. It's a normal jump shot, nothing there. Unnecessary and I look forward to getting my ($2,000) back.”

More: How one defensive wrinkle makes Knicks real NBA championship contender

Technical fouls in the NBA trigger small fines. McCollum’s comments indicate that he thinks the call will be rescinded, though, given that it was assessed upon a review, he may eventually be disappointed.

The play came early in the second half, 20 seconds into the third quarter. McCollum was trying to evade Brunson, when he hopped backwards to create space for a jumper. Because he lifted his pivot foot, he was called for a travel, but as McCollum shot the ball, he kicked out his lead leg.

Brunson leapt in the air to contest the shot, but McCollum’s foot struck Brunson in the groin, sending him to the court, where he lay for several moments, writhing in apparent pain.

CJ McCollum is hit with a technical foul for striking Jalen Brunson in the groin. Brunson takes a long moment to recover (with replays).

He gave him the unintentional Draymond Green kick there, OUCH. pic.twitter.com/kJelSudCuk

— MrBuckBuck (@MrBuckBuckNBA) April 18, 2026

Brunson’s teammates appealed to officials, while Brunson took several moments to collect himself. Eventually, crew chief John Goble reviewed the play for a hostile act, and a technical foul was assessed to McCollum, leading to a free throw.

Because Brunson was still recovering from the play, Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns took and made the technical free throw.

When asked after the game for his take on the play, Brunson downplayed it.

“It wasn’t purposeful so we move forward,” Brunson told reporters after the game.

Game 2 is scheduled for Monday, April 20, at Madison Square Garden.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: CJ McCollum rips Jalen Brunson 'Broadway' performance after groin kick

LOS ANGELES — Luke Kennard scored a career playoff-high 27 points, LeBron James had 19 points and 13 assists, and the short-handed Los Angeles Lakers capitalized on Kevin Durant’s injury absence for a 107-98 victory over the Houston Rockets in the opener of their first-round playoff series on Saturday night.

Deandre Ayton had 19 points and 11 rebounds for the fourth-seeded Lakers, who pulled off an impressive win without their top two scorers.

Both teams played the opener without their most important player. Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves have been out indefinitely with injuries since April 2, while Durant was a late scratch with a bruised right knee.

Los Angeles thrived by hitting 60.6% of its shots while holding the Rockets to 37.6% shooting with pesky defense.

That disparity allowed the Lakers to win despite attempting just 66 shots — the fewest in an NBA game in the past three seasons — and giving up 21 offensive rebounds.

“That’s what it has to be — a collective group,” the 41-year-old James said after beginning his 19th NBA postseason. “When you’re missing so much firepower like we are right now with AR and Luka being out, we all have to do our job and maybe have to do a little bit more, protect one another offensively and defensively, and I think we did that tonight.”

Alperen Sengun scored 19 points and Jabari Smith Jr. had 16 points and 12 rebounds for the fifth-seeded Rockets. Amen Thompson added 17 points.

Game 2 is Tuesday night in Los Angeles.

The Lakers acquired Kennard from Atlanta in early February, and the NBA’s most accurate 3-point shooter became a key reserve before he seized a major role over the past two weeks. He hit four 3-pointers in Game 1 while making nine of his first 12 shots.

Durant banged knees with a teammate in practice Wednesday. Reed Sheppard five 3-pointers while scoring 17 points, but the Rockets struggled to score consistently.

“We won a lot of areas, but just shot poorly,” Houston coach Ime Udoka said. “That’s going to be tough to beat, but there are some things we left on the table, opportunities missed.”

Los Angeles also got a boost from Marcus Smart, who had 15 points and eight assists with four 3-pointers. Smart said before the series that success would come down to “willpower” — and the Lakers clearly had more for starters.

Bronny James began the second quarter playing alongside his famous father in the first significant playoff minutes of the 21-year-old’s career.

It came easy to the Hawks for 24 minutes.

Then, the Knicks turned their water off.

It was the key to this 113-102 victory, the Knicks ramping up their defensive intensity and shutting down Atlanta after halftime.

“We just didn’t stop on plays,” Miles McBride said. “I feel like they were getting out and they were winning the space battle, getting open and getting to their spots. I feel like in the second half we really cut that off. We made catches difficult, and we got to loose balls.”

The Hawks managed just 47 points over the final 24 minutes, and a good chunk of that came after the game had been well decided in the final minutes of the final stanza.

The Hawks were held to 19 points in the third quarter as the Knicks took command.

They were forced into difficult shots late in the shot clock, and Atlanta went cold from 3. After shooting 8-for-16 from distance in the first half, they went 6-for-21 the rest of the way.

“Their small-small pick-and-roll is a problem. And our guys did a pretty good job of defending that the right way in the second half,” coach Mike Brown said. “It kinda got away from us early in the game, and they got some open looks from it, but our level of physicality without fouling was really good in the second half, as well as our communication with their small-small pick-and-roll.”

The Knicks talked a lot after the win about needing to be the more physical team for the entirety of this series, and having to be better on the glass.

They outrebounded the Hawks by five but were only plus-two in the paint (44-42).

Nickeil Alexander-Walker was held to 17 points on 6-for-17 shooting. Jalen Johnson scored 23 points but shot 8-for-19. The Knicks turned them into inefficient scorers.

The key is to consistently defend like they did in the second half and turn it into a habit.

“Every single night,” McBride, a team-best plus-12, said. “It’s nonnegotiable; we have to bring it every single night and be locked in.”

This performance was at least a good start.

The deck was stacked against the Lakers heading into the playoffs, but what awaited them was a tower of cards ready to topple over in the Rockets.

Kevin Durant being a surprise scratch pregame tilted the tower to the brink of falling and the purple and gold made it a mission to finish the job throughout Game 1. It wasn’t a perfect game and there’s room for improvement on both ends, but LA ultimately came out with a win that ended up being fairly comfortable in the second half.

It’s a great start to the series with tons of encouraging signs for the Lakers. Let’s dive into some of the biggest takeaways from the victory.

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A team effort

Coming into the series, the expectation was that LeBron James would need to have a big scoring night for the Lakers to have a real chance. While Durant’s absence alleviated some of that scoring burden, LeBron was certainly not the biggest scoring threat for the Lakers.

That’s not to say he wasn’t fantastic on the night. He had eight assists in the first quarter to set the tone from the jump and still finished with 19 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds. However, all five starters had at least 14 points and each had moments.

No one was bigger offensively than Luke Kennard, who was perfect from three and scored a playoff career-high 27 points. Back-to-back threes in the fourth quarter from Kennard put the Lakers up 16 and allowed them a cushion as they closed out the game.

Luke Kennard.

COOKING.

He's got 24 points on 8-11 shooting… a new playoff career high! pic.twitter.com/wcDgRlzS6O

— NBA (@NBA) April 19, 2026

Deandre Ayton looked like his early-season self and poured in 19 points, including icing the game with an and-one in the final minutes. Rui Hachimura was an efficient 6-10 from the field and hit numerous timely shots. And Marcus Smart mixed in some good in his chaotic night, scoring 15 points with eight assists.

The Lakers shot an astounding 60.6% from the field and 52.6% from three. They nearly shot better from the field than from the free throw line, but that’s a topic for another time.

They jumped ahead early with a fast start in the first quarter. After turning the ball over on the first possession, they had 13 assists before they committed another turnover. While they came in bunches later, LA set the tone from the start as a team, getting sustainable, high quality shots.

Stingy defense

Offense is always going to get the headlines, but the Lakers’ defense was fantastic in this one. Similar to the offense, it was also a team effort.

The Lakers held Houston to 37.6% shooting overall. They hit just 11 of their 33 attempts from range. They committed 13 turnovers and never found any rhythm offensively. The Lakers did a great job clogging the paint and forcing Houston to hit shots from outside.

The Rockets shot 22-53 in the paint, a conversion rate LA will absolutely live with. After some threes early in the game, they locked down Reed Sheppard, who went 6-20 from the field and 5-14 from the three. Amen Thompson (7-18), Alperen Şengün (6-19) and Jabari Smith Jr. (5-14) all had poor nights from the field.

The Lakers have been good defensively for some time now, but they showed it on the biggest stage yet. It wasn’t perfect, but playoff games rarely are. But, importantly, it was more than enough to give them a chance to win.

And on that point about not being perfect…

Turnovers and rebounding

This win was not a case of the Lakers playing a perfect game, either. In fact, the Lakers struggled in the two biggest areas head coach JJ Redick emphasized throughout the week in turnovers and rebounding.

After keeping things under control for much of the first half, offensive rebounding became an issue for LA in the second half. Houston finished with 21 offensive rebounds and 23 second-chance points. The Rockets stayed in the game in the second half because of their ability to create second and even third chances.

Similarly, turnovers were a problem for the Lakers. They finished with 18 giveaways that Houston turned into 24 points. While admittedly some crude math, nearly half of Houston’s scoring came from those two areas.

It was the nature of the turnovers that were confounding, too. On multiple occasions, the Lakers pushed in transition when they didn’t have numbers and turned the ball over. A number of turnovers were unforced, whether errant passes or passes to teammates who weren’t ready or looking.

The only time LA trailed after the opening minutes came after a disastrous close to the second quarter that included some very untimely turnovers. That the Lakers were able to overcome not just that stretch but generally not taking care of the two biggest areas of emphasis and still win handily should be encouraging about how this team has room to improve even after a win.

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